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Korea's Olympic men's hockey team features Clinton goalie Matt Dalton

Larry and Karen Dalton, of Clinton, will be cheering on their son, Matt Dalton, who will tend goal for South Korea at the Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games. Dalton, who plays for a Seoul team in the Asia League, was able to become a naturalized citizen so he’s eligible to play on South Korea’s Olympic squad. (MIKE HENSEN, The London Free Press)

When Southwestern Ontario’s Matt Dalton steps onto the ice before taking to the net in the Pyeongchang Winter Games this month, the Clinton native’s heart will swell with national pride.

Only, he won’t be stopping pucks for Canada.

Dalton, 31, who grew up in London’s backyard, holds dual Canadian/South Korean citizenship. He’s the goalie for the host country’s national team and, after Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, is arguably the second-most famous person from Clinton.

“Realistically, I think the biggest job for us to do here is to try and grow the game of hockey in Korea,” Dalton said early one morning via Facebook Messenger from Seoul. “We are playing at a stage and level where if we can gain popularity and interest in the game of hockey in Korea, we are doing our job.”

No one uses the term “ringer” anymore. Dalton is what’s known as a “passport player.” He didn’t have any connections, family or otherwise, to South Korea before he went there expressly to play hockey for the Seoul club Anyang Halla in the Asia League. He is among a handful of Canadian and American players who became citizens in return for a chance to play in the Olympics.

“It happens all the time. The IOC (International Olympic Committee )is fairly agnostic about it,” said Michael Heine, the researcher who heads up the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University.

As long as an individual nation considers an athlete a citizen, so does the IOC. “You have to have a passport,” Heine said. “It is not at all an uncommon occurrence.”

And what’s it like to be a netminder from Clinton playing hockey in a far-off land?

“It is different, considering most people from Clinton have no idea where (South Korea) even is. Neither did I, really, until I came over here. Luckily, I had played in some other countries before coming here, so I had a chance to experience living abroad,” Dalton said.

He had a fairly routine career as a goalie, playing nearly 80 games for the Junior B London Nationals and the St. Marys Lincolns in the early 2000s. Dalton then went to the United States, where he played in several leagues, including the NCAA. He was signed as a free agent by the Boston Bruins and even dressed for a few games.

Dalton decided to go to Korea four years ago after finishing a contract in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League. “I was hurt for a bunch of the season and was looking for a new experience. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be or where it was going to be,” he said.

Dalton was recruited through the BK Hockey program, run by Londoner Steve Beak, who knew Korean coach Greg Paek was looking for talent.

“I would skate at (Beak’s) summer ice in Komoka. He was the one that presented me with this opportunity. I thought about it for a while, talked to my family and also talked to people that were playing in Korea at the time and decided to give it a shot,” Dalton said. “At the time, I had no idea NHL players were not going to be coming to the Olympics. I thought that if everything worked out and I was able to get this chance to play in the Olympics — what an amazing opportunity!”

Dalton says the hockey there and the hockey here are like night and day.

“The hockey is obviously different. I don’t think you can compare hockey (in Korea) to North America. The game is so new here. There isn’t the coaching over here that we grow up with back home. Hockey is very expensive sport to play here, which limits the number of kids playing. With that being said, the people that are involved and play here are very passionate about the game.”

According to Dalton, most Koreans do not resent him coming to their country — which is now also his homeland-away-from home.

“The Korean people have been very welcoming. I would say everything is about 90 per cent positive. You will always have people that have their opinions, but the reality of it is that we help their team. I wouldn’t call us ringers, it isn’t like they picked us out of the NHL or something. But we are just a piece to a puzzle that try to fit in and help the team,” he said.

The Korean team plays its first game in the Olympics Feb. 15 against the Czech Republic.

Dalton’s mother Karen Dalton said her son is a personable guy who will talk to anyone — and that his affable nature has helped him in the international hockey world. “He’ll talk to anybody,” she said.

At a young age, he had to decide what position he wanted to play. “He liked being in net because he could play every game,” his mother said.

So if the point of bringing passport players on board is to help a country win medals, has it ever worked?

“It’s never won anyone a medal in hockey,” said Jason Kay, editor-in-chief of The Hockey News. “It’s just so they can ice a relatively competitive team. They know they’re going to get their butts kicked.”

Having journeymen players like Dalton on the world-ranked No. 21 team just makes that butt-kicking less painful, Kay said.

They are the face of the Olympic team and will serve as flag bearers for Canada at the opening ceremonies in South Korea. The pride of the Ilderton Skating Club is on the short list of the greatest ice dance teams in history. Their 20-year partnership has produced an Olympic gold medal (Vancouver, 2010), two silvers (2014) and three world titles.

They were the first North Americans — and youngest duo — to be crowned Olympic champs and have captured every major international senior competition, along with eight Canadian titles.

They won the 2006 world junior event, and three years later, became the first team to receive a perfect component score under the International Skating Union’s new judging system.

Virtue and Moir took a break from competitive skating for two years following the Sochi Olympics. They announced their return in 2016 and relocated to Montreal to train under new coaches Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.

They swept the 2016-17 season and won 10 consecutive events until finishing second at the 2017 ISU Grand Prix final to training mates Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. Those two teams are expected to battle for ice dance gold in PyeongChang.

David Duncan, 35, ski cross.

After earning a degree in aviation from the University of Alaska-Anchorage, Duncan made the transition from downhill skiing to the more extreme ski cross, a racing event that was hurtling towards an Olympic debut in Vancouver, 2010.

It was a wise move.

Duncan needed a top five finish at the final pre-Vancouver qualifer and ended up third, punching his ticket to the Winter Games. Unfortunately, he broke his collarbone during a training run and never was able to compete.

He made up for the disappointment with a strong lead-in to the Sochi 2014 Olympics, becoming the first male to win both ends of a ski cross double-race (Innichen, Italy) and was tabbed by Sports Illustrated as the gold-medal favourite before failing to make the final.

The Boler Mountain grad has seven career podium finishes on the World Cup circuit and is a two-time X Games medalist.

He was 13th overall in the world rankings last season and has been a member of Canada’s ski cross team since 2007.

Justin Peters, 31, Blyth, ice hockey.

The former Huron-Perth Laker spent four OHL seasons with Toronto St. Mike’s and Plymouth, and was a second-round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2004.

He played a combined 83 NHL games with the ‘Canes, Washington Capitals and Arizona Coyotes, and after a stint in the KHL with Riga Dynamo, moved to the Cologne Sharks of the top German league this season.

His brothers Alex and Anthony were also major junior players.

Chris Kelly, 37, ice hockey.

Former Knights forward is a veteran of 833 NHL games (all with the Bruins and Senators) and won a Stanley Cup with Boston in 2011. He spent the first part of this season with the American League’s Belleville Senators before being named to Canada’s Olympic team. Largely a defensive specialist at centre, he helped Canada win the most recent Spengler Cup as an alternate captain.

Christian Thomas, 25, ice hockey.

Former Knights first rounder was dealt to Oshawa in his rookie OHL season as part of the blockbuster trade that sent John Tavares to London in 2009. The son of ex-NHLer Steve Thomas was a New York Rangers second-round pick in 2010 and scored 54 goals for the Generals in 2010-11. He has played 27 NHL games, mostly with Montreal, and was with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins before being named to the Olympic team. He was also part of the Spengler Cup champion squad this year.

Alexander Kopacz, 28, bobsleigh

The former Mother Teresa high schooler and pilot Justin Kripps are running hot into South Korea after capturing the two-man overall World Cup title (along with season-long help from Jesse Lumsden) with a third-place finish in Germany earlier this month. The ex-Western University shot putter and mechanical engineering grad attended a talent ID camp for bobsleigh in 2013 on the advice of former coach Marty Robertson, also a Londoner — and the rest is history.

Two years ago, the 6-foot-4, 245-pounder helped Kripps’ four-man crew win bronze at a World Cup event in Lake Placid. This season, he and Kripps stood on the two-man podium four times, including a victory in Germany, to claim the Crystal Globe as circuit champs.

Kopacz is trained by former German bobsledder Olaf Hampel and always wears a bandana his mentor used while winning two Olympic gold medals.

This is the Londoner’s first Winter Games.

Josh Kirkpatrick, 30, bobsleigh

The Olympic rookie serves as brakeman for Justin Kripps’ four-man team, which ended up fourth on the World Cup series this season.

Kirkpatrick has enjoyed multiple top-10 finishes and, like Kopacz, has an interesting back story.

The former Saunders high school pole vaulter and Cornell grad was working in the Calgary Flames’ marketing department when he decided to join the company slo-pitch team.

After bashing a home run, the story goes he was approached by a woman who worked for the Alberta Bobsleigh Association and asked if he was interested in trying out.

He showed potential — and a lack of fear at zooming down an icy course at 140 km/hour. He has competed the past three years with pilots Kripps and Chris Spring.

Michael Marinaro, 26, figure skating.

Sarnia native teamed up with Kirsten Moore-Towers in the spring of 2014 — shortly after she earned an Olympic silver medal from the team event in Sochi with former pairs partner Dylan Moscovitch. Marinaro and Moore-Towers finished third at the past two Canadian championships and won the most recent U.S. Classic on the Challenger Series. They were also third at the Cup of China on the Grand Prix circuit. Missed a good chunk of the 2016-17 season after Moore-Towers sustained a concussion in practice. Marinaro previously partnered with Margaret Purdy with home base in Strathroy and, later, Komoka, finishing second at junior worlds in 2012-13. He currently trains with Moore-Towers in Montreal.